Part 3: Salt Satellites

TRANSCRIPT

Anja TaylorLeaving the rich red dirt of Kalgoorlie behind, we're heading to a remarkably different landscape just 60km south. The stunning, thick, crunchy salt lakes of Lake Lefroy are found within an ancient part of planet Earth. And there's no better way to experience it than aboard a land sailing yacht, which we're told can reach 90km an hour.

Simon PampenaIf I'm travelling 90km per hour, I want crumple zones around me. Do these things have crumple zones?

Dr Derek MullerI don't think so.

Simon PampenaI think the crumple zone's gonna be right here.

Dr Derek MullerYes, it is.

Simon PampenaYeah, thanks.

Anja TaylorWow, wow, wow, wow!

Paul DayYeah, welcome to Lake Lefroy.

Anja TaylorSo beautiful!

Paul Dayis a former assistant geologist who's been involved with the Land Sailing Club for 30 years…

Paul DayWelcome to my lake.

Simon PampenaOh, it's great.

Anja TaylorWhat a lake! Looks like an ice-skating rink.

..so he's the perfect person to help us get our salt legs.

Paul DayKeep arms and legs in at all times. I have a couple volunteers for the rolling here.

Simon PampenaWow.

Anja TaylorWhoa-ho-ho!

Paul DayYep, we're away.

Simon PampenaHigh-speed sailing on hard ground in homemade yachts. What could go wrong? This kinda feels like slalom.

Anja TaylorAhhh! How do you do this? Is it just like sailing a normal boat?

Paul DayIt's exactly like sailing a normal boat. It's faster because you've got lower resistance. So there you go.

Anja TaylorHow fast are we going now?

Paul DayWell, you just broke the world water-sailing speed record.

Simon PampenaWhoa! Really?

Paul DayYeah!

Simon PampenaWhoa! That was pretty close.

Paul DayTime to enjoy ourselves.

Anja TaylorLake Lefroy is surrounded by some of Australia's oldest rocks, formed nearly 3 billion years ago. It's an ancient landscape that's changed dramatically throughout its history.

So there used to be big rivers running through this part of the landscape, didn't there? I mean, it was a lot wetter a long time ago.

Paul DayYes, when you drill under the salt through to the bedrock below, you often encounter old river channels, and around the margins of the lake, you often find things like limestone reefs.

Anja TaylorSo this was all under water?

Paul DayWe think the water table, the sea level, would've probably been about exactly where we are now.

Anja TaylorIn fact, the transition to a landscape that's more salt than lake is a relatively new one.

Paul DayThe age of the lake, you're probably looking at 100 million years.

Anja TaylorWhoa! Derek!

Simon PampenaDerek!

Anja TaylorBut why do we get huge salt lakes here and not any, say in Sydney or...?

Paul DayWell, the situation you've got in land is that all the river systems are all draining into themselves, rather than out to sea. So all the sediment and the salt those river systems carry all ends up in one small area.

Anja TaylorAnd how small is this area? How much salt have you got? This is just one corner of the lake.

Paul DayI believe this lake we're on today is about 250 square kilometres.

Anja TaylorWow!

Dr Derek MullerNot so small after all. In fact, the area is large enough and bright enough to attract a different crowd altogether.

Lake Lefroy is an amazing site for land sailing, but it also serves a very useful scientific purpose. I'm here to meet with some scientists who are using the lake to calibrate their satellite, which is actually passing overhead right now.

The research is led by Dr Carsten Laukamp from the CSIRO, and includes a team that's travelled all the way from Japan. The data they collect here on the ground will ensure the information from their satellite is accurate.

Dr Derek MullerWhy do you use Lake Lefroy?

Dr Carsten LaukampWe choose Lake Lefroy because it's actually one of the brightest lakes in all of Australia, so this salt lake is pretty big, and it's quite homogenous, the surface. And that's what we need because the satellite system has a very coarse spatial resolution, so one pixel size is like 30 metres, so it's really big. So we need a big homogenous target.

Dr Derek MullerFor the next three days, they'll repeatedly walk across a grid pattern on the ground, measuring the light being reflected off the salt lake surface.

Dr Derek MullerSo you walk lines across here.

Dr Carsten LaukampExactly.

Dr Derek MullerBack and forth. You do four lines.

Dr Carsten LaukampWe do four lines, exactly.

Dr Derek MullerGotcha. And you're taking readings all along that line.

Dr Carsten LaukampSee, we continuously take measurements along that line to get as much information as possible over this whole area here.

Dr Derek MullerSo you basically take an up-close image of the reflection off the surface.

Dr Carsten LaukampExactly.

Dr Derek MullerIt's very detailed. Very accurate.

Dr Carsten LaukampYeah.

Dr Derek MullerAnd it's taking that same image, the same exact image but from...

Dr Carsten LaukampFrom space.

Dr Derek MullerComparing the two helps calibrate the satellite, making its information much more accurate. Whether that's studying the atmosphere for climate research, or as Carsten's done, creating a mineral map of Australia to help miners locate deposits.

Dr Derek MullerRight, you want to find gold.

Dr Carsten LaukampYes, would be good, yeah.

Dr Derek MullerHow can you really find minerals by looking at the Earth's surface?

Dr Carsten LaukampBasically every material that you have, when it's hit by radiation, by the sun, for example, it has a different reflection spectrum. So if you understand what kind of absorption features are characteristic for these different materials, then we can map this. So we're not mapping the gold as such, we are mapping all the minerals that have formed when the gold deposit was formed around it.

We actually found some gold already.

Dr Derek MullerYou found some gold?

Dr Carsten LaukampIn the Northern Territory.

Dr Derek MullerUsing this method?

Dr Carsten LaukampUsing this method, yeah. The exploration company used our data, our maps that we create from this satellite data, and they found a gold prospect. So it's not a mine yet, but they found some showings.

Dr Derek MullerThey found some gold in the earth?

Dr Carsten LaukampYes.

Dr Derek MullerBased on pictures from space...

Dr Carsten LaukampExactly.

Dr Derek Muller..of the minerals around that area?

Dr Carsten LaukampYeah.

Dr Derek MullerThat's remarkable.

Dr Derek MullerLeaving Carsten to continue his calibration, it's time to rejoin Anja and Simon, who have taken things into their own hands.

Dr Derek MullerWhoo!

Simon PampenaWhoo!

Anja TaylorThat was one of the best days of my life. No question. That was at least top five things I've ever done.

Simon PampenaThat was incredible! I don't think I've had that much fun or made that many mistakes... in my life.

Dr Derek MullerYou guys look like Antarctic explorers.

Simon PampenaYeah. You've got salt crystals in your beard.

Anja TaylorAnd you're so clean.

Dr Derek MullerI feel like it's the closest thing you can get to flying. You alright?

Simon PampenaYeah.

Dr Derek MullerSalt up your nose? Didn't you feel that when you got up on two wheels and you got that wind from behind and you felt like, 'Whoo!' Just so smooth.

Anja TaylorYou were flying. You had one wheel in the air.

Dr Derek MullerI have it in the air a lot, including a couple of capsizes.

Simon PampenaYeah.

Paul DayHi, guys, how did you enjoy your sail?

Simon PampenaOh, man. Thank you so much.

Dr Derek MullerAmazing.

Paul DayOur pleasure. Unfortunately, before you can join the international league of land sailing reporters, you have to get down on your knees and lick the salt.

Related Info

YOUR COMMENTS

Anja, you know when you were sailing with Paul Day & asked him..."How fast are we going now?" & Paul replied...

"Well, you just broke the world water-sailing speed record."

I thought you might enjoy seeing what the water-sailing speed record looked like in Nov 2012...are you ready?...

Sail Rocket - Speed Recordhttp://youtu.be/pipGWQmerEQ

Sail Rocket - Bloghttp://www.sailrocket.com/node/672

You were going fast on Lake Lefroy!!

Anja Taylor - 17 Feb 2013 10:34:47am

Thanks for those links William - that looks incredible!! But Hmmmm.... somehow I doubt we were going that fast! (Perhaps Paul meant the record for normal yachting speeds - rather than a sailing rocket!!!?)

In any case, it felt fast enough to get that adrenalin going..... !

William - 14 Feb 2013 11:35:33pm

Dear Anja, Simon, Derek,

Seeing you land-sailing on Lake Lefroy was fun to watch, especially when you all went solo. Anja....great sliding 180 degree turn....Wooohooo!!

I loved seeing you all covered in salt & hearing your laughter with lots of 'fun factor'. You never know, maybe someday you'll find yourselves doing a Catalyst story about the science of wind powered craft.

How about....'Ice Boats' on Lake Geneva;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC0I5PEhkJo

....or what about....speed sailing on the l'Hydroptere DCNS;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB8LKjZjAyk

I couldn't help but notice that the three seater land-sail that you started on had a windsurfing sail (GAASTRA). Did you know that Windsurfing focuses on the science of hydrodynamics & aerodynamics....hehe....

Wind Surfing;http://youtu.be/JlK_jyDzZZY

Thanks heaps for showing land-sailing on Lake Lefroy; you guys are ace fun!!